


Writing Exercise: Colorful Children in the Mansion

by StoryTellerBoneZone



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 08:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13922865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoryTellerBoneZone/pseuds/StoryTellerBoneZone
Summary: A writing exercise in which five children explore a mansion





	Writing Exercise: Colorful Children in the Mansion

There were once five brave children. They each wore different hoods to disguise themselves when they were out at night. They loved to explore and they loved to play where they shouldn't. They loved to explore in the rain. They loved the rain. They shouted and laughed and cried to each other in the rain. They were safe in the misty thunder storms.

Yet one stormy night, with playful wicked smiles on their faces, they decided to explore a mansion on the edge of their quiet little town. To the children, the mansion was the biggest thing they've ever seen. It was green, unlike the rest of the town's brown wood. The structure was soft. The beams had mushrooms popping out and heavy planks over the windows.

The children were delighted; their laughter echoed in the thunderstorm over head. They swung the door, feeling everything they could, looking at everything there was, and taking in everything that there has been.

It's important to mention the children. Their names are unimportant. In their secret code language as they talked to one another, they called each other by their colors.

Red was always a quiet one. She always was being made fun of. She didn't have friends. She didn't have anyone around her, besides the other delinquents. Loud noises hurt her. Maybe that's why she never talked. She loved to stay because of how much fun she had in the dark quiet places where children only laugh.

Green was disfigured by his father. His father isn't here anymore. His mother made sure his bad old man stayed away. But green always wondered if he was just like his dad. Still, with a blind eye and with teeth with holes in them, he stays because he feels strong with his friends.

Orange was weak. He was the youngest of the group, only just reaching double digits. He was fast. His tiny legs carried himself through the dark woods like the wind. But he was weak. His mother scolds him for being unable to lift things. It's bad bones. He gets it from being poor, the children tell him. The children are right but Orange don't know why. Orange proves himself here. He's the strongest among the delinquents.

Blue is an outgoing girl. She loves to sing and smile and laugh and cry. She's emotional, sometimes. The adults have a word for it, but it's a big word. She goes from happy to sad easily, and switches back. They just switch back and forth from different moods. Always laughing with her mother, always terrified with her father. Unlike with her parents, she feels safe here.

Then, there's Black. Black is enigmatic as that adjective is to children. She always seems scared. She can't seem to handle herself when she sees herself. She always panics when she remember that she's a person. No one knows why. None of the group think much of her. She's too confusing. But she loves to play in the rain, in the forests and the rivers. She's the bravest of them all. She brings them to places they didn't know existed. But know one knows why she stays.

With small flashlights, they explored the victorian remnants of mansion. All the decorations old money and old nature. The stuffed wolves frightened Green but it only delighted Black. The soft sound of woodpeckers on the rotten wood hurt Red's eats but blue loved the melody.

They explored up the rooms, taking in all the sights and sounds of the bedrooms and relics of a time long past. Pocket watches and clothes and paintings, all so lovely. The dining room was set beautifully to blue. The plates were fine china, at least from what Orange could guess from shows on TV. They had bones on it, picked clean over the decades by hungry carrion feeders. Rats skirted away from the group of children. And then, they descended in the basement.

The door was a mushy gray, nearly blending into the wallpaper of the dining hall. Orange and Blue noticed it first. They descended the stairs. Spiders and rats and other vermin eluded the group on wooden support beams and in the rafters. They were disturbed by the sudden intrusion.

Down, down the laughing children went. The stairs seemed to have gone forever. Each one creaked as the children, one after the other, jumped on each one to see how loud they could make the sound. It was slippery though, wet rotten wood tends to be. But they supported on another. When Red fell, Orange and Green caught her.

Down, the laughing children descended. They played and laughed until they were met with the basement. It was cold and damp here. It was so dusty that black ended up as gray. The children loved it, despite the coughing.

Then they saw it. It was an impossibly tall mirror, bigger than maybe even Blue's dad. He was a tall big man. The children slid up to it, one by one.

The mirror was tall, thin, and cracked. It looked like someone had kicked it. Black, she didn't like this. She wasn't smiling. She wanted to leave. But the children, the other children wanted to explore. She pleaded with them, but they wanted to see themselves.

They saw themselves as they wanted to be. In the cracks, Red saw herself with a big head. She was smart. She was respected. Her reflection knew and understood she was different but understood that it was okay.

Next to Red, Green was normal. His withered arm and his burnt face disappeared in the cracks. He looked almost the same. But everything was different for him. His tooth grin didn't even have holes in it.

Standing behind green was Orange. The mirror skewed him, somehow. He looked big, muscular. Like a man but with the head of a preteen. He flexed his massive biceps to the giggling of the other children.

And in the cracks, it looked like there was two different blues. One of them with a big grin and the other with a somber pout. Both of them had her signature hood on, but it looked like they were holding hands together.

The children ogled the mirror, basking in its presence. But then Black told them to leave. The children looked at her, confused. Why would they leave when they looked like they always dreamed of?

Then they looked at one another and gasped. The mirror had changed them. Red's head was bigger. Her thoughts were faster and sharper. Green looked like a normal child, even his eye regained sight. Orange did look muscular, comically so. There were indeed two blues. The mirror had indeed changed them.

But Black knew. She pleaded for them to leave. Tears began to well down her cheeks. The others, they looked at each other. And they agreed to get out. Black wasn't feeling it. Maybe it was the dust, maybe it was the mirror. They had all enveloped her into a hug.

Black, she felt safe again. There were ten arms around her body, resting against red's shoulder. But then she opened her naive eyes to see her own reflection in the mirror.

It stared back at her, alone. It was the unending, unwavering stare of a monster looking back at her. Her reflection was alone, tapping against the glass of the mirror. It's nails were picking at the cracked shards. Red noticed. She always notices sounds. She shrieked and they all saw that cold reflection.

In the mirror, by 'Blacks' feet were her friends. Orange, both Blues, Red, and Green's corpses. They were eviscerated. Their nails had clawed at the very wood underneath them. A butcher's cleaver was in 'Black's' hands, freshly bloodied.

Both Blacks began to breath heavily. With each bob of their head, the reflection's grin widened and widened. Soon, they could hear it's laughter. It was identical to Black. They could see the bottom of 'Black' begin to pool with blood.

As the rain's patter began to soak into the basement, they heard Black, their Black, begin to laugh and smile too. They backed away in fear.

Five children died that night. Five corpses that could have been prevented. Five children disappearing everynight made sense. Their bodies looked weirder. Something was off, more than dead children. Sally's head was swollen. Marie had a doppelganger, exactly identical to her. Ricardo was big and muscular, his jacket somehow managed to stretch to his height. Antonio almost looked like a normal kid now.

It was such a shocker to town when they found their decapitated bodies. No one was the same afterwards. It took them years to trust each other again.

Black died too, that night. The sweet girl who laughed with friends was never heard from again. Something monstrous took over. Something more primal she always wished she was. Like a monster in a faerie tale.


End file.
